Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was the most terrible and terrific thing I've ever
done.

In prospect, this is simply a walk in the park. But what a walk and
what a park!! The walk is over 100 kilometers, round-trip. It is never
particularly technically difficult [on the usual tourist route]. But the last
day-and-a-half, when you are climbing from 12,000 feet to over 18,000 feet, is
an absolute killer. The typical climb takes three days to reach the base of
the the main peak. Late that afternoon you try to sleep and rest for a
midnight departure to complete the final climb before the morning clouds come
roaring up the mountain and hide not only the view but everything within but a
few dozen feet of you. Although I had developed a very bad headache that kept
me from catching any sleep, I nonetheless decided that I had come too far not
to at least make the final attempt. Miraculously, the headache soon
disappeared, apparently frozen by the bitter cold that now became a far greater
enemy.

A bit past one-third of the way up I had no choice but to confront
failure. My feet had long since gone completely numb; frostbite seemed a very
real possibility and I knew I would be in danger to continue. With huge
disappointment, I finally accepted that I had to quit. My guide forced me a
bit further up to Hans Meyer Cave where we stopped to wait for the others to
return and to try to bring my tortured feet back to life. A long rest and the
heat of a kerosene lantern under a space-age emergency blanket finally thawed
out my feet. It was getting close to day-break when my guide finally said,
"Let's go." "Where?" I replied. "Up" he said, pointing at the peak.

I looked at him for some time, first shocked, but then realizing that
with the long rest I did feel much better. Still, I was very afraid that the
distance, cold, and lack of fuel (oxygen) would again prove too much for my
feet. But we packed up and tried it one more time. Fortunately, the sun eventually
rose and brought with it enough respite from the numbing cold of the night to
allow my feet to function.

Now the enemy was myself -- a body that just could not function without
the oxygen it needed to fuel the muscles. I would take three, four steps --
sometimes only two -- and lean gasping against my climbing stick, trying to
will my muscles into functioning again. The last mile was extremely slow. I
was overwhelmed by the irony of knowing that I was momentarily to collapse in
final, total failure, within shouting distance of the top, had I the energy
still to shout. In my utter exhaustion (and, in retrospect, obvious touch of altitude
sickness), death seemed the next, and practically
welcome, step. Finally my much smaller, older-appearing guide started to lean
against me from behind, pushing me slowly forward up the seemingly endless
switchbacks. The hardest part was the last few hundred meters. The
switchbacks had ended but had been replaced by rocks that had to be climbed.
Although only two to three feet in height, they would have been insurmountable
for me without the steady encouragement of that helping hand on my behind.
Finally, Gilman's Point, 18,760 feet high, and an absolute exhiliaration made
only more so by the contrast from the despair of defeat that I had felt first a
few hours before, and then again a few hundred feet below.

Could I have made it around the crater on to Uhuru peak, at 19,130 feet,
the highest point of the mountain? Certainly not without a long rest, despite
my sudden sense of euphoria.

My guide was very eager to have us leave now, fearing the clouds that were soon
to approach. Reluctantly, but now with practically a spring in my steps which
increased with each long skidding slide down the skree of the mountain, we
rushed straight down the mountainside, quickly gaining strength as the oxygen
increased.